really interesting thread, thank you very much guys and keep the impressions comming.

by the way lmf22, how does the v-link compare to the juli soundcard? could you give us a quick comparaison.

best regards

Q

In my previous post, I was comparing the V-Link to the Juli@ soundcard's optical output, using the Van den Hul Optocoupler MKII cable. "The sound is very open (large soundstage), relaxed, and very good deep bass and plenty of it. There is a lot of details in the treble, and it is very smooth. I did not notice fatigue after at all. I noticed improvements across the frequency range, compared to what I had before."

Beyond what I said before, compared to the Juli@, the V-Link has smoother treble (hat's probably what led to the non-fatigue sound). Due to the increased soundstage of the V-Link, I found it easier to separate the different instruments. I also really like the mid-range (e.g., vocals) with the V-Link. It has more body, while the mid-range on the Juli@ sounded thinner. The V-Link just sounds more analog. The Juli@ is quite good, but the V-Link is a bit beyond that. The difference isn't night and day, but the more I listen with the V-Link the more I like it. I think the V-Link is a good deal at $169. I believe the Juli@'s retail price is about $130. It's worth it to spend the extra $40.

Anyone tried the V-Link with Linux yet? There are plenty of Linux LiveCDs around to give it a go. Interested to see what "lsusb -v" at the command line reports, and how it works with ALSA etc. It should be OK as the TAS1020B is a USB audio 1.0 device, but it would be nice to have confirmation.

Do remember that my HiFace is one of the earlier units. It has the bigger clocks and obviously very different sound quality compared to the ones they ship nowadays. I've argued and argued with people about the SQ of HiFace. To me it sounds completely different than many reviews or people say it does.

In reference to the 2 clocks I read in Computeraudiophile, here is what Musical fidelity responded to the author:

"There is only a single dedicated oscillator whose frequency is fixed to 44.1 or 48k based on what the USB receiver circuit sees; I must’ve missed this detail in reviewing your copy of the review in January"

That statement doesn't make much sense to me. As far as I can tell, there is only one xtal on the V-link's pcb. It's a 6MHz oscillator which acts as the master clock of the TAS 1020B USB stream controller whose internal logic generates all other frequencies. It's the TAS1020B that controls the timing of the DIT4096 digital audio transmitter. There are no pulse transformers on the digital out like say the new KingRex 192 converter. I don't if that has any great effect on SQ.

I can connect to my DAC via the digital out of an Envy24HT s/card or to its USB adaptive input. I cannot really hear any difference between the two using my Senn HD595 headphones, So either my ears are not so good, or the two sources really are on a par with one another. I'm not sure my system has the resolution to show much improvement with the V-link. Looking forward to what Patu has to say ...

The technical layout stuff is over my head. I was parroting MuFi's reply. My reason for purchasing the v-link was to connect a laptop with no s/pdif output to a dac that, while it accepts s/pdif and usb, has a 16bit only usb receiver. I wanted something that would play 24/96 files and didn't require any modifications or drivers. I don't care about 192k. The v-link is a solid improvement for me. I cannot tell how much of it is due to the probability that my usb input isn't as good as the s/pdif on my dac so that sounds better, or the better input combined with the transport controlling the usb port asynchronously. After reading the audio-gd DI thread, this seemed the better way for me to go. I wanted plug and play with as little digital processing as possible. I'm happy. As far as I'm concerned, there could be nothing inside the box but a picture of Charlie Sheen. I use an Adum galvanic isolator dongle that isolates the data lines and power line, and my dac runs off its own power supply. Maybe I got lucky and have the kind of system that benefits from the v-link, but i feel like I went from mobo to external dac. imo